


Swipe Left

by allonsyarielle



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Airport Delays, M/M, Meet-Cute, alternate first meeting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 19:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19400533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allonsyarielle/pseuds/allonsyarielle
Summary: Patrick is stuck in the airport after his flight is delayed so he does what any other newly single millennial would do and pull out his phone to waste time on tinder.  Things go a little differently than anticipated.





	Swipe Left

**Author's Note:**

> I shared this on discord then could stop figuring out how this tweet would play out with David and Patrick. Honestly I could have seen it go either way, but my first instinct was that David was the one who comments and then I thought about "what if this is Patrick post-Rachel first putting his profile on men and women and he freaks out and swipes left and that evolved into this one-shot.

Oh great. 

Patrick had gotten through airport security only to check the board and find out his flight was delayed by three hours! He was tempted to try and get booked on another flight somewhere else since it wasn’t the destination that mattered to him as long as he was far away from here. But that was just going to cost more money, which was money he didn’t really have. 

He’d already upended his life a few weeks ago when he finally called off his wedding to Rachel and broken up with her for good this time. He had a new job lined up in a town a few hours from home, but it didn’t start for two weeks, and he couldn’t bear to spend another day in his parents’ house.

So, Patrick decided to dip into his savings and get away. He needed space to clear his head. Away from his hometown. Away from his parents. Away from Rachel. 

But now here he was stuck in the airport with hours to kill. And like any newly single millennial, he decided to open up Tinder to kill time. 

He swiped left on three girls right away. There was nothing wrong with them, he just didn’t particularly feel any attraction toward their profiles. 

Actually, if he was being honest with himself, Patrick wasn’t sure if he’d ever actually felt attraction toward women, ever. Which was most of the reason he called off the wedding in the first place.

He’d just been with Rachel for so long, it was comfortable. She was his first and only for almost everything. Patrick had long since accepted that attraction like you see in movies or on TV was a myth. Then again there was always that voice in the back of his head that was growing harder to ignore that told him he might be more interested in men, which is why he currently had his profile set to “men and women”. 

The next profile that came up was a man’s, and Patrick would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a twang in his gut. The guy was maybe, possibly, the most beautiful man Patrick had ever seen. With his hair perfectly coiffed and in his expensive looking clothes. 

Which is way Patrick maybe too aggressively swiped him away. The idea of matching with the guy both excited Patrick and scared him shitless. A tiny little photo on an app should not be messing with him this much. This was a mistake. This was too much. He needed to ease himself into the idea of dating anyone, let alone the idea of dating a man. He still had no fucking idea what any of these feelings even meant. 

Patrick was about to delete the app and put his phone away when a voice spoke up from behind him. 

“Ouch hard no for that one?” 

Patrick spun around and was met face to face with the man he’d just swiped away on his phone. And if it was possible, he was even more beautiful in person. 

“Um...oh...I…sorry?” Patrick didn’t quite know what to say but his Canadian kicked in and he felt the need to apologize. The man had just witnessed Patrick essentially rage quit on his profile.

“No, I’m the one who is sorry. I shouldn’t have been snooping. Curiosity just got the better of me,” the man replied.

Patrick could have turned around. He could have just walked away. They were just two strangers in an airport and never had to see each other again. But there was something about this man, Patrick couldn’t look away.

He also, however, could not form words. 

“Anyway, I’ll just leave you to it then. Sorry again for interrupting. Happy swiping.” The man looked like he was about bolt. Probably from the embarrassment of catching Patrick swipe left on his profile. But Patrick didn’t want him to leave. Why wouldn’t his stupid tongue form words?

“Wait,” Patrick finally spoke up. “Can I-can I buy you a drink?” His voice felt small. Patrick was not a shy guy. Yet here he was in front of a drop dead gorgeous man, a bumbling idiot.

The man raised an eyebrow, giving Patrick a curious glance. “You know you swiped left?”

“Yeah, but not because I didn’t want...I just...I’m new at this.”

“This being dating apps? Or dating men?” The man asked as if he could read Patrick’s mind.

“Um...well...both?” Patrick said the last word as if it were a question. It was the first time he’d actually expressed his interest in men out loud. Not that he even really said it, but both he and the man knew the only way that profile would have come up on his phone was if he had his preferences set for men.

“Hmm, well how about I buy you a drink then. It kinda seems like you could use it more.”

* * *

The next three hours passed almost too quickly. David, that was the man’s name, bought Patrick a drink, then Patrick returned the favor. They drank, and they talked, and Patrick told this stranger all about Rachel and calling off the wedding and why he aggressively swiped left on his profile. This time, the man laughed when Patrick recounted the part of the story that involved him, and Patrick felt that same twang in his gut he did when he first saw the profile, though maybe it was slightly stronger now.

It was like a weight had been lifted from Patrick’s shoulders he didn’t even know had been there in the first place.

“You know I swiped right,” David said.

“What?” Patrick asked confused.

“On you. I swiped right on you. That’s why I had been looking when I saw you swipe me away. I recognised you from your profile.”

“Oh.”

Patrick could feel his cheeks flush, and it wasn’t from the alcohol.

_ Air Canada flight AC308 to New York JFK is now pre-boarding at gate B13 _

“Well, I should,” Patrick gestured toward the gate.

“Um, me too.”

Patrick had written his phone number on a napkin when he signed his check, but wasn’t sure at the time if he was going to be bold enough to actually share it. Before he could talk himself out of it, he slid the napkin over toward David.

“Thanks,” Patrick said.

“For what?” David asked.

“For swiping right.”

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: The second cheapest nonstop flight I found from Toronto on a random date was to NYC which is why I picked that. The cheapest was Montreal but I figured Patrick would choose to splurge the extra $20 to go to NYC over Montreal. The next cheapest was Nassau but it was not nonstop and was 21h travel time because of an overnight layover. This was the extent of research I did for this fic.
> 
> Find me on tumblr: aokayinspace  
> Or on twitter: @allonsyarielle


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